The real Logan Paul died years ago, in the Aokigahara Forest, and I have proof.
You don’t know me. Chances are, the people I’m going to be talking about barely remember me, either. In fact, if you asked the people who were there, they’d probably even deny I was there in the first place, say all I’m doing is trying to ride my ticket to fame. Either that, or they know why I’m finally coming forward, and for whatever reason, they don’t want me to tell it. Because, you see... nobody may know me, but I’m certain a lot of you know who I am going to be talking about. I’m American, but my family is military, and we’ve lived on a military base in Japan for a few years. I was going to school on-base, but since it was December, we had Christmas break, and my family decided to go visit the Mount Fuji area for a few days. We were having breakfast, my Dad and my Mom and I, at a restaurant near our hotel (and no, it wasn’t one of those capsule hotels, though I’ve always wanted to see one). Our plan that morning was to head out to Mt. Fuji and see all the landmarks out there, and our first stop was something my Dad had always wanted to see... the Aokigahara Forest. My Dad was well aware of the tragic past of the place, his interest came mainly from an old friend of his from his first station in Japan (back just before I was born), Adam Yamamoto, a Japanese-American private who he went through boot camp with. Unfortunately, one morning while on leave, they went to Mt. Fuji to camp, and Adam wasn’t there when my Dad woke up. He had left a note, half-written in Japanese; it turned out he had gone off to Aokigahara himself. Adam was never found. I asked my Dad why he wanted to go, if it was such a bad thing that happened. He said no matter where Adam was... if he was in the forest, or if he somehow just went AWOL and was living somewhere in Japan, quietly, not bothering anyone... he still wanted to pay his respects to his friend. I wondered why he wanted to do it now, and his reasons, he said, were because he didn’t think I would be old enough to handle it. Nobody close to me had died, and he said I was very lucky about that, and he didn’t want me to have to deal with it until he thought I was ready. I guess he went through enough of it years ago, but he never talked about it. As far as ‘paying his respects,’ he kept fiddling with a bracelet on his wrist. He wore it all the time; it was one of the rubber ones, like the “LiveStrong” things that everyone used to wear before that became a joke. He said it was given to him during his service, but he never told me who or where it came from beyond that. Now, I think I could guess, and I think I knew where he wanted to put it. We got into the car and drove out towards the mountain. Now, in December, it’s long past the official climbing season, so as far as views go, we wouldn’t be able to climb, but at least the traffic wasn’t too bad. We arrived at the forest within a few hours. When we came in, there was something going on in the parking lot, though while my Dad was looking for a space, I was trying my best to take a look. I couldn’t make out much, except for a large, green hat. I couldn’t be certain, but it kind of reminded me of those things from Toy Story. It wasn’t until we got out of the car and got closer to the woods... and the crowd... that we got a better look at them. I’m not the world’s biggest follower of Logan Paul, but I haven’t been living under a rock. I’ve watched a couple videos; most just made me groan, but a few got me to chuckle here and there. I’m not afraid to admit I can get sucked into entertainment as much as anyone else. And, well, even when you’re not enamored with a celebrity, it’s still cool to run into them. My parents had no idea who he was, but my Dad already kind of got a sense that he didn’t like him. From the way he and his friends were goofing around, my Dad rolled his eyes and muttered something about the “Ugly American” making things worse for the rest of us. I told him it was Logan. My Dad still wondered who the hell it was. “He’s on YouTube. He makes videos and stuff. He’s been in movies and TV. You watch Law & Order, you probably saw him.” My Dad shrugged and said, “Being on YouTube doesn’t give you the right to be a jackass in public.” “You watch Saturday Night Live all the time and laugh at Alec Baldwin. He’s kind of a jackass, too, isn’t he?” My Dad didn’t have much of a comeback, so he let it go. Logan was wearing that hat I saw earlier, and I saw I was right... it was one of the little green aliens from Toy Story. I tried to listen to their conversation, but they seemed to be busy trying to get stuff together, and were filming each other for some video. Just by luck, we stumbled upon the filming of one of his vlogs. I waved to them, and one of the guys turned a camera toward us. “Hey, look! Not-Japanese people here today. What are the odds of that?” Logan turned to his buddy Mike and rubbed his nose. “I don’t know, man, I mean... a tourist site, here in Japan, guess you never see anyone... you know, from out of country show up.” He started giggling. My Dad tried to cover his face and not look at the camera. They did seem to be trying to record him despite it. “Get that thing off of me. You’re not putting me on YouTube, are you?” Logan suddenly got very straight-faced. “Not at all, sir. We are very aware of the rules about showing faces. We would not do that. We are very respectful.” I could see one of the other crew members trying his best not to laugh, but not being very successful at it. My Dad just shook his head and waved me along to follow him and my Mom. I yelled back that I loved Kong, but I wasn’t sure if they heard me or not (Kong was still alive at the time; the poor Pomeranian deserved better. Rest in peace, little guy). We got up the path, and ahead was a sign, all in Japanese. I could read a little bit of it, but I couldn’t make it all out. My Dad, though, translated for me. “It’s a warning sign. It’s telling people who are contemplating suicide that it’s not the answer, and that they should seek help before they act. And there’s a phone number at the bottom to call.” The sign was almost as tall as he was. The thing is, I had no interest in doing anything, but the place had a very eerie vibe to it. I had heard it was something to do with the way lava flowed into the area many, many years ago, but sound seemed to be a little muted, and closed in. “You... You don’t think there will be anyone who did anything when we go in, do you, Dad?” He shook his head, but he didn’t seem all that sure. “It’s not the right time of year for that. That’s one of the reasons we’re here now... that, and most don’t do it right off the main traveled paths. Just stay behind us, just in case. We probably won’t be here that long.” There were a few trails to take, and even as we wandered in, I could still see signs posted up all over the place. A few I saw were just simple warnings in the little Japanese I knew, some were in English. I did feel like we were being watched, but I couldn’t explain how, or by who, or why. It was a beautiful, peaceful place, which made me even sadder to think that people would do something like that here. But then, I thought, maybe that’s why they did it. I wondered what it was that drew my Dad’s friend here. “Was Adam ever really sad?” My Dad stopped on the trail, looking off into the trees. “Not really. He always seemed a pretty balanced guy. I wouldn’t say he was ecstatic or anything, but certainly not depressed. Of course, I guess you can never really know what’s going on in someone’s mind. Then there’s all the ghost stories, but I don’t believe them, and you shouldn’t, either.” That much I did know. There are ghosts in Japan called yurei, and for the most part they are just like the ghost stories from the west; trapped souls, looking for peace, having some sort of unfinished business that keeps them here. At least, most of them are that way. Some are different; vengeful, wrathful, angry. Some can even cause earthquakes if they are powerful are angered enough, supposedly. I would prefer not to deal with an earthquake. We lived in California for a few years, and I didn’t care for the ones we had there. My Dad finally stopped at a spot. I wasn’t sure why he picked this spot exactly, but it seemed like he knew what he was doing. He took the bracelet off his arm and hung it on a branch. He then knelt down by it, like he was praying. My Mom came and put her arm around me, and we gave him some time to just be on his own. Then I looked over, into the woods. It was cold there in the December temperature, but the reason I froze had nothing to do with the weather. A tree, maybe a few hundred yards away, listed to the side, broken at the base, like it had grown just a little too big and snapped under its own weight. There was something behind it. No... someone. I could see a hand, a hand that looked way too blue to be normal. I thought I could see strands of black hair flapping in the breeze. My Mom felt me tense. “What’s wrong?” “Is... Is there something behind that tree?” My Dad hopped up, and looked over at where I was pointing. He ran over, and passed in front of me, and in that moment, the thing I thought was a hand was gone. He checked behind the tree for a moment, and then came back, shaking his head. “Nothing there. Thankfully. Maybe the wind caught a piece of bark, but no, no bodies or anything.” He rubbed my shoulder. “We should probably go. Maybe we can see the Narusawa Ice Cave. There’s a lot more people there, shouldn’t make you quite so jumpy.” We headed back to the parking lot. We almost got there when I heard some fairly loud voices off to another path. Not far away, I could see Logan, Mike, and a few others standing in the woods, kind of shuffling around. Logan had a camera, holding it out at arm’s length as he walked toward something. “Should we call the police?” And then I saw something else. Somebody was off against a tree. Not moving. I thought I saw a rope. Oh, my God. I looked ahead. My Dad wondered why I stopped. I told him I’d be right there, I was... I was going to see if I could get an autograph. I don’t think he believed me, but he moved on a little bit, not seeing what I was running towards. I moved closer in the woods. “I’m so sorry, Logan, this was supposed to be a fun vlog!” I stopped, waiting and watching from a distance. They were still all filming themselves, looking at what was clearly a body in the woods. I felt sick, but I couldn’t look away. “We came here with an intent to focus on the ‘haunted’ aspect of the forest... this just became very real.” On the one hand, it seemed like they were all very sincere. On the other, none of them would put down their phones... and Logan still had that hat on. It was all so surreal. Logan wandered into the woods, almost towards me, and there was someone with a camera, still rolling. I ducked down, hoping they didn’t catch me watching. “This is the most real vlog I’ve ever made. And I’ve never... and I’ve never had a more real moment than this.” At the time, I was still processing what I had just seen. Looking back... this was probably one of the most insensitive things I’ve ever heard someone say. It really was all about him, in that moment, not about the man who hung from a tree not more than a short distance away. The filming stopped for a moment. I think it was Mike who was filming him, but I never really got a good look, as he turned around and walked back to the group, while Logan just kind of stomped around a bit, shouting and making what my Dad would’ve called an ass out of himself. I felt a quick, cold breeze pass by. The dead branches in the trees didn’t even move, but yet, I could have sworn a wind had blown by. I shifted my position a little bit, and a branch crackled on the ground. “Hey! Is someone out there?” Logan stopped his stomping around, as he looked to see where the branch crack had come from. I didn’t get up. I didn’t know what his reaction would be, but I figured he wouldn’t be happy if he knew I was snooping around where he was filming. He moved closer, little strings on his hat dangling. He was almost near me, but looking off in the wrong direction. He didn’t see me. But he also didn’t see what I saw next. From around the other side of the tree I was behind, a shape, dressed in white, came up behind Logan. Its hair was long, black, wispy, and its skin was a pale blue. Its face was masculine, and it stared blankly, as if it was sightless. But it moved with purpose, with speed. It spun Logan around. He shouted again. Then the blue man grabbed him by the mouth, holding it open. The blue man then seemed to shrink slightly as, still holding Logan’s mouth open, crawled inside. Logan’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he shook. Soon, the man had disappeared inside completely, leaving only his fingers sticking out of his mouth, until they too vanished. A moment later, something else fell out. It was small, slimy, shaped almost like a fetus. It then slid into the earth, like it was in quicksand, and vanished. Logan’s neck twisted violently to the side, making cracking noises, then came up sharply. He then looked directly at me. I ran. I didn’t know what else to think. It didn’t take long before I barreled directly into my Dad. “You okay? What happened? Did those assholes do something to you?” “Dear! Language! You’ve said that a lot today.” “It’s fine, he’s heard it plenty, I’m sure. Probably worse.” I didn’t talk. I just led my Dad back to the spot where I had been. I pointed to the bed of leaves. “It was there... there…” He looked at me, puzzled, but scraped aside some of the leaves. Something was sticking out of the dirt. Some kind of dark material, easy to overlook under all the tree roots. My Dad dug further. “What the... My God…” He pulled out his phone. Logan’s crew had their own body to deal with. We had ours. As the police came to handle their situation, they also came to extract the remains from below the tree. The skeleton was slowly revealed, still wearing tattered military fatigues. My Dad didn’t want me to watch as they pulled it out, bone by bone, carefully and reverently, but I insisted. In the meantime, I could hear snippets of conversation as they told the police their story, along with some other unusual things. His buddy Mike handed him a snack. “You should really eat something, man. Here.” Logan pushed it away. “Ugh, no thanks.” Mike looked puzzled. “What? You love this shit, man! What’s gotten into you?” “Just... Just not hungry.” A girl I didn’t recognize was holding a phone. “Hey, Jake’s on the phone. You want to talk to him?” Logan looked up at her. “Jake? Jake who?” “Your brother! What happened, you just forget everything?” I tried not to think too hard about it. But I couldn’t stop. The way that... thing had just crawled into him like that. I wanted to tell them, but they wouldn’t believe me. A week passed. We finally got word that the remains in the woods were, in fact, Adam Yakamoto. His family back in California would finally have the peace they needed. But I knew there was more to it. They wouldn’t have peace... not completely. A little while later, I saw Logan had posted up the video about the suicide forest. He was hammered so badly he took the video down and apologized... kind of. It seemed very much in line with Logan’s character, even though the move cost him so much in terms of sponsorship. It’s almost like... he sabotaged himself, as punishment for what he had done. Logan is walking around, all right, but it’s definitely not him inside that body. And it’s not just some random ghost. My Dad thanked me for retrieving the bracelet to leave with the body. But I never went to go get it. It was on the skeleton already, when they pulled it from the ground. There was no way I could have gotten it. Only Adam could have gotten it on his own. You don’t have to believe me. I can understand your skepticism. It’s the internet, after all. A lot of crazy rumors get spread around, and like I said before, you don’t know me, and not too many others do, either. But I hate to tell you all... Logan’s not in those woods. Don’t bother trying to find him. Because I think I know what that thing was that he coughed up. I don’t necessarily believe in the soul, but there’s something that makes us all who we are. And whatever it was, it landed in the corpse of Adam Yakamoto. And as is tradition in Japan, and to make things easier transporting him overseas, Adam’s remains were cremated. If anything of Logan still exists, it’s stuck in a box of ashes. I don’t envy him one bit. But hey, he found that haunting he was looking for. Category:Fanfic Category:Creepypasta